…and an LS record: 8 Bills in 17 mins

The Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed as many as eight bills in a span of 17 minutes. This happened when there was a lot of din on the concluding day of the session in the House with the BJP and Shiv Sena demanding the sacking of Union Minority Minister Affairs Minister A R Antulay and the Left protesting the Bill on the insurance sector.

“So many important Bills were passed without any discussion. The Congress and BJP have killed democracy,” said CPM leader Basudeb Acharia. BJP MP Kiren Rijiju said “the Congress tried to bulldoze the institution of Parliament.” Congress MP Bagun Sumbrui, who was first elected to the 6th Lok Sabha, said what happened in the House on Tuesday was “unusual”.

Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vyalar Ravi, however, said such things “have happened in the past”. Ravi and Minister of State in the ministry V Narayanasamy stressed that the “Opposition was responsible for the unruly scenes in the House”. “The Opposition, not the Government, disowned the House,” added Ravi.

Former Lok Sabha secretary general Subhash C Kashyap agreed that there have been instances “when a greater number of Bills have been passed on a given day in the House”. A former LS member said “as many as 19 Bills were passed within a couple of hours on a single day in the 9th Lok Sabha”.